Modi, Xi could meet 3 more times this year: Chinese envoy

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping have the opportunity to meet at least three times this year to take forward their friendship forged during their unprecedented informal summit in Wuhan, China’s ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui said.

Luo said the two leaders reached broad consensus on the overarching, long-term and strategic issues of global and bilateral importance during their two-day summit in the central Chinese city last week.

The summit in Wuhan was seen as an effort by India and China to rebuild trust and improve ties that were hit by the 73-day-long Doklam standoff last year.

Giving a first-hand briefing to scholars and journalists on the informal summit, which he dubbed as a “very special event” in Chinese diplomacy, Luo noted that President Xi has never hosted a foreign leader twice outside the Chinese capital Beijing.

Xi had hosted Modi in the central Chinese city of X’ian in 2015 and last week the two leaders met in Wuhan.

“This shows that China attaches high importance to its relations with India,” he said.

The envoy said the idea of holding an informal summit was first mooted by Prime Minister Modi when he met President Xi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Astana, Kazakhstan in 2017. After that, the two side worked very hard to make it happen, he said.

Luo said President Xi and Prime Minister Modi will have three more opportunities this year to carry forward their fruitful and wide-ranging conversations in Wuhan.(Agencies)